Creating an Ant Task with Eclipse

  1. Add ant.jar to your eclipse project.
  2. Create package to hold task classes. I recommend xxx.yyy.ant.tasks
  3. Create task class. Here is a simple one: 
    package com.affy.ant.tasks;
import org.apache.tools.ant.*;
public class HelloWorld extends Task {
    public void execute() throws BuildException {
        System.out.println("Hello World!");
    }
}
  4. Select Window, Preferences, Ant, Classpath
  5. Set ANT_HOME
  6. Add the folder where your class files are stored (xxx/build/classes, for example)
  7. Select Task, Add Task
  8. Assign a task name (ie, HelloWorld) to use in build.xml
  9. Select location (the folder xxx/build/classes for example) </ol>

    That's how easy it is to start writing your own Ant tasks. If you're going to invoke build.xml from within Eclipse, then you only need the following lines: 

        <target name="HelloWorld">
        <HelloWorld/>
    </target>

    Otherwise, you need to tell Ant where to find the class file. For example, 

        <path id="cp">
        <pathelement path="xxx/build/classes"/>
    </path>
    <target name="HelloWorld">
        <taskdef name="HelloWorld" classname="org.wwre.ant.tasks.HelloWorld" classpathref="cp"/>
        <HelloWorld/>
    </target>